A group of 11 distinguished nonfiction authors, including Pulitzer Prize winners Taylor Branch, Stacy Schiff, and Kai Bird, has filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against tech giants OpenAI and Microsoft. The lawsuit alleges that the companies have violated the authors’ copyrights by using their literary works to train artificial intelligence models, specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other AI-driven software.
The authors presented their case on Tuesday, accusing the companies of breaching their copyrights by using their written content to train OpenAI’s extensive GPT language models. The legal action claims that OpenAI and Microsoft have greatly benefited from the unauthorized use of these nonfiction books, seeking fair compensation and redress for the authors’ contributions.
Rohit Nath, the attorney representing the writers, asserted, “The defendants are profiting substantially from their unauthorized use of nonfiction books, and the rightful authors deserve equitable compensation and acknowledgment for their intellectual property.”
What initially began as a lawsuit led by writer and Hollywood Reporter editor Julian Sancton last month has now evolved into a proposed class-action lawsuit. This legal move aligns with similar actions taken by other prominent authors, including John Grisham, George R.R. Martin, and Jonathan Franzen, all alleging copyright infringement by OpenAI and other tech entities in their AI training protocols.
OpenAI and Microsoft have refuted these allegations. Microsoft’s integration of OpenAI’s systems into its products and its substantial investment in the AI startup adds complexity to the legal discourse.
In the amended complaint filed on Monday, the authors claimed that OpenAI had ‘scraped’ their works and various copyrighted materials from the internet without proper authorization. The lawsuit underscored Microsoft’s significant involvement in the training and evolution of these AI models, thereby holding the tech giant equally accountable for copyright infringement.
The authors are seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order mandating the cessation of copyright infringement by the implicated companies. This legal battle stands as a pivotal moment in defining the boundaries and responsibilities of tech enterprises utilizing copyrighted material for AI development.
